DPP wants police to investigate dentist in Coudray-Greaves case

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn has urged the police to conduct a full back-ground investigation into the orthodontist who, it is alleged, refused to release findings of a dental-record analysis conducted on the remains of what is believed to be murdered Trinidadian school teacher Michelle Coudray-Greaves.

The orthodontist has requested that a sum of $1.8 million be paid over to him, according to reports corroborated by the DPP.

"Unfortunately, I don't think the police authority has done enough to investigate this gentleman, and I am going to be so bold and call him out on it if he is still in the island. More needs to be done to investigate this particular gentleman," said Llewellyn on Thursday evening.

The DPP, who said the matter came to her attention last week via a Gleaner report, pointed to a section of the article where a Montego Bay resident magistrate (RM), who is overseeing the case, asked that a request be made to her office seeking assistance in getting the forensic report.

However, Llewellyn told persons gathered at the Rotary Club of Liguanea Plains meeting at Eden Gardens, Kingston, that it was outside of her administrative remit to act on the matter until, if and when, it moved beyond the RM court.

"When I saw this article, and that the DPP was being called upon to intervene in some way, I asked myself, 'Why was it that a subpoena was not issued that is processed by the resident magistrate (for) this dentist who had assisted in the Coudray-Greaves case and was now indicating that he was not going to give the report that was clearly going to prove the identity of the deceased."

While arguing that the matter represents a clear example of a lack of professional responsibility, the DPP said she was surprised that members of the dental profession in St James had not expressed outrage over the matter.

NEED TO EXPRESS OUTRAGE

"It is important … especially in light of the fact that the deceased is a foreign national and that this murder occurred in Jamaica in the most awful way, that we should hear more outrage coming from the community of St James, and we should hear colleague dentists also indicating an outrage in respect of this gentleman," she said.

"If the particular governing body in respect of dentistry knows anything, or has any information that would assist the public interest where this person is concerned, they, too, within the context of their protocols, should be prepared, in the public interest, to indicate what they know and when they knew it."

Llewellyn said it was the first time in her 27 years of service as a prosecutor that she was witnessing a demand being made by a health-care professional who is assisting in gathering evidence in the prosecution of a matter.

The DPP indicated that her investigation had revealed also that the orthodontist was not a Jamaican citizen and had not been in the island since the matter came up in court.

The body of Coudray-Greaves, the daughter of Marlene Coudray, the minister of gender affairs in Trinidad and Tobago, was found burnt in a cane field on the outskirts of Montego Bay on June 11 last year. A man has since been charged in connection with her killing.